By Francine Ciasico Booksale on Tuesday dismissed rumors that the company has shut down operations and was being sold to other parties. “BOOKSALE IS NOT CLOSING NOR HAS THE COMPANY BEEN SOLD,” Booksale's management, Visual Mix Inc and Booksale Cebu Inc., said in an official statement. (BOOKSALE via Twitter / MANILA BULLETIN) “BOOKSALE is alive and well and is committed to its corporate mission of making reading affordable as it has done the past 35 years,” the management added. The “categorical statement” released by the management was said to “correct rumors (fake news) being circulated in social media.” “While the economy and the business environment in which BOOKSALE operated has dramatically changed in the past 20 years, we are facing these changes confidently and unwaveringly to sustain our mission of providing affordable reading for you,” the management continued. The management noted unreasonable store rental rates, salaries, wages,  tripling or quadrupling of operating costs, and peso's depreciation, as among the many challenges the company ahs faced in the past 20 years. Despite being put undergoing such "insurmountable obstacles," Booksale stated that they “could not raise (their) prices proportionately” since it would contradict their corporate mission. “We are instead optimizing our operations, searching for better suppliers, and talking to other parties here and abroad just and mutually synergistic arrangements. In doing so, our competitors whose customers we have captured in the past, have used these developments to spread rumors about BOOKSALE’s takeover by other parties or its closure,” the management explained. In closing, Booksale expressed their gratitude to the support given by their loyal customers.